Some Japanese verbs are really two verbs joined together. 思い出す (to remember) is 思う (to think) plus 出す (to put out). 取り消す (to cancel) is 取る (to take) plus 消す (to erase). These are 複合動詞 (compound verbs; "fukugo doshi" in romaji), and they are everywhere in everyday Japanese.
The good news is that the second verb is often a small, reusable piece. Learn what 〜出す, 〜込む or 〜合う tends to add, and you can read many new verbs at first sight and remember them more easily. The bad news is that the pattern is a tendency, not a rule. This post covers both: the common endings first, then the compounds that refuse to add up.
How a compound verb is built
The first verb takes its stem form (the form you get by dropping ます, as in 思い from 思います), and the second verb attaches directly to it:
- 思う → 思い + 出す → 思い出す
- 飛ぶ → 飛び + 込む → 飛び込む
- 話す → 話し + 合う → 話し合う
The result conjugates like the second verb. 出す becomes 出した, so 思い出す becomes 思い出した. The accent and sometimes the meaning of the second verb change a little, but the grammar is the same as for any verb.
In many compounds, the first verb says what happens and the second adds a direction ("out", "in"), a manner ("each other", "completely") or a stage of the action ("start", "finish"). When the second verb works this way, it is close to a suffix. In others, both verbs have faded into something new. Both kinds exist, and you should expect to meet both.
〜出す: out, or suddenly starting
出す means "to put out" or "to take out". As a second verb it has two main jobs.
1. Something comes out or is brought out.
- 飛び出す (to jump or dash out): 猫が道路に飛び出してきた。 A cat darted out onto the road.
- 取り出す (to take out): かばんから財布を取り出した。 I took my wallet out of my bag.
- 思い出す (to remember): やっと彼の名前を思い出した。 I finally remembered his name. The thought comes "out" of your memory.
2. Something suddenly begins. This is the use that matters most for English speakers searching "verb + dasu meaning".
- 泣き出す (to burst into tears): 赤ちゃんが急に泣き出した。 The baby suddenly started crying.
- 降り出す (to start to rain or snow): 駅を出たとたん、雨が降り出した。 It started to rain just as I left the station.
- 笑い出す (to burst out laughing): 彼の冗談を聞いて、みんなが笑い出した。 Hearing his joke, everyone burst out laughing.
Compared with the plain 〜始める (below), 〜出す usually feels abrupt or unplanned, as if the action broke out by itself. That is why 泣き出す fits a baby better than 泣き始める does.
〜込む: in, or deeply
込む on its own means "to be crowded", but as a second verb it carries two senses: going into something, and doing something thoroughly or deeply.
- 飛び込む (to jump in, to dive in): 子どもたちは川に飛び込んで遊んでいた。 The children were playing, jumping into the river.
- 書き込む (to write in, to fill in; also to post a comment online): 掲示板に感想を書き込んだ。 I posted my thoughts on the message board.
- 思い込む (to be convinced, often wrongly): 彼は自分が正しいと思い込んでいる。 He is convinced that he is right. Here the thought has gone "in" and stuck.
- 話し込む (to get deep into conversation): 友だちと話し込んで、終電を逃した。 I got so deep into talking with a friend that I missed the last train.
Notice the pair 思い出す and 思い込む. Same first verb, opposite directions: the thought goes out, or the thought goes in. This is the clearest picture of how the second verb steers the meaning.
Try one · as the app asks it
What does 思い込む mean?
- to remember
- to be convinced, often wrongly
- to jump in
- to talk it over
Answer: to be convinced, often wrongly. The thought goes in and sticks, so you are convinced, often wrongly. Compare 思い出す, where the thought comes out.
〜合う: each other, or together
合う means "to match" or "to fit". As a second verb it usually means that the action is mutual or shared.
- 話し合う (to discuss, to talk it over): 週末に家族と引っ越しについて話し合った。 We talked over the move with the family on the weekend.
- 助け合う (to help each other): 困ったときは助け合うものだ。 When you are in trouble, you help each other.
- 愛し合う (to love each other): 二人は愛し合って結婚した。 The two loved each other and got married.
- 見つめ合う (to gaze at each other): 二人は黙って見つめ合っていた。 The two gazed at each other in silence.
One exception worth knowing is 似合う (to suit, to look good on). It looks like 似る (to resemble) plus 合う, and it does not mean "resemble each other". It means that something suits someone: その色はあなたによく似合う (That color suits you very well). It is a good example of a compound that has settled into its own meaning, which is the subject of a later section.
〜切る: completely
切る means "to cut", and as a second verb it often means "all the way", "to the end" or "to exhaustion".
- 使い切る (to use up): 今月のお小遣いを使い切ってしまった。 I have used up this month's allowance.
- 疲れ切る (to be completely worn out): 一日歩き回って、疲れ切った。 After walking around all day, I was worn out.
- 言い切る (to state firmly, to assert): 彼は「絶対に大丈夫だ」と言い切った。 He declared flatly, "It will definitely be fine."
The sense is "carry it through until nothing is left". Used with something that is finite (money, energy, a task), it means you have reached the end of it.
〜直す: do it over
直す means "to fix" or "to correct". As a second verb it means to do the action again, usually to get it right.
- やり直す (to redo, to start over): 最初からやり直さなければならない。 I have to start over from the beginning.
- 書き直す (to rewrite): 名前を間違えたので、書き直した。 I had made a mistake in the name, so I rewrote it.
- 見直す (to look over again, to reconsider): 提出する前に、もう一度答えを見直した。 Before handing it in, I went over my answers once more.
Because the verb implies "better this time", 〜直す is a different thing from simple repetition. Doing something a second time without any sense of fixing it would normally use a different word.
〜始める, 〜終わる and 〜過ぎる
These three endings are the most regular of all, and learners usually pick them up early.
- 〜始める (to begin) marks the start of an action: 先月から日本語を勉強し始めた。 I began studying Japanese last month.
- 〜終わる (to finish) marks its end: 昨日、その小説を読み終わった。 I finished reading that novel yesterday.
- 〜過ぎる (to exceed) means "too much": 昨夜は食べ過ぎて、お腹が痛い。 I ate too much last night, and my stomach hurts.
These attach to nearly any verb stem, which is what sets them apart from the others. 〜出す, 〜込む and 〜合う each combine freely with many verbs, but a given pair is still a fixed word you recognize. The ending 〜始める, by contrast, can be added to almost anything on the spot.
Compounds you cannot work out from the parts
Here is the part that lists of endings leave out. Many compound verbs do not mean what their parts suggest, because the two verbs have merged into a new word. Some examples:
- 取り扱う (to handle, to deal with, to treat). 取る (take) plus 扱う (handle) is the most guessable of the three, yet it is still a word with its own set of uses: 割れ物なので、丁寧に取り扱ってください (It is fragile, so please handle it with care). The noun 取り扱い (handling) appears on signs and in manuals.
- 見合わせる (to put off, to hold off; also to exchange glances). 見る (look) plus 合わせる (make fit) does not tell you that it means postponing: 天気が悪いので、出発を見合わせた (Because of the bad weather, we held off our departure). You will often see it in announcements, such as a train service being suspended.
- 打ち合わせ (a meeting to go over plans, a briefing). It comes from the verb 打ち合わせる (to arrange in advance), but you will meet the noun far more often: 明日の午後、打ち合わせがある (There is a planning meeting tomorrow afternoon). "Hit together" tells you nothing about a business meeting.
These are not rare oddities. They sit in ordinary vocabulary, and the lesson is plain: use the pattern to make a guess, but learn each compound as a word of its own. When you meet 取り消す, check what it means (to cancel, to withdraw) and keep that, instead of trusting 取る plus 消す to produce it for you: 予約を取り消したいのですが (I would like to cancel my reservation).
A few habits help.
- Learn the compound with a sentence, not as two pieces. The sentence shows you which kinds of objects it takes.
- Notice look-alike families. 取り消す, 取り扱う and 取り合う all start with 取り, and they mean quite different things. Knowing the shared first verb helps you sort them, but not guess them.
- When a dictionary lists a compound as its own entry, treat it as its own word, however transparent it looks.
Where Tangoya fits
Compound verbs are not a corner of the language. About 250 of the 10,000 words most used in everyday Japanese conversation are compound verbs, and seven in ten of them sit in the less common half of that list, against just over half of kanji compounds, so you meet each one less often. Someone who reads 曖昧 (vague) without a pause can still stall on 見合わせる, because knowing kanji tells you little about how two verbs have fused.
That is why Tangoya, the free Japanese vocabulary game this blog belongs to, gives compound verbs a level of their own, one of its six kinds of word. A strong level in kanji compounds can't hide a weak one in compound verbs, and since each day's set takes one kind of word, often the one with the most room to grow, a weak level here gets days of its own.
Each compound is asked three ways. Read shows the verb with four meanings, and the wrong ones are often those of look-alikes: when 取り消す is asked, the meanings on offer can be those of 取り扱う or 取り合う, which share its first half. Listen plays the verb for you to pick its meaning by ear, and many then ask which kanji it is written with. Recall is the hardest: a Japanese sentence with a gap, and you type the compound in the form the sentence needs, so 思い込む may have to go in as 思い込んで. A verb you miss comes back later, asked the way you missed it.
A short plan for learning them
- Start with the endings above and their basic senses: out, in, each other, completely, redo.
- Learn common compounds as whole words, each with a sentence.
- When a new compound looks guessable, guess, then check the dictionary. You will often be right, and the misses are where you learn the most.
- Keep the unguessable ones, like 取り扱う, 見合わせる and 打ち合わせ, in a separate mental list of "words that need their own memory".